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Visit blueapron.com terms for more information. I want to tell you about a remarkable new podcast I can't get enough of what happens when our passions become obsessions on David Greene is Obsessed, one of America's most familiar voices and longtime CO host of NPR's Morning Edition seeks out obsessives of all kinds while unpacking his own fixations. You'll hear David talk to comedian Tig Notaro about her complex passion for plant based food, actor David Arquette on his love for Bozo the Clown, Paula Poundstone on Her House Full of Cats, celebrity chef Michael Simon on why he just can't quit the Cleveland Browns even though they often make him miserable and so much more. It's pop psychology disguised as conversations with the world's most fascinating people. You can listen to David Green is Obsessed wherever you get podcasts. Hi there. You're listening to the Lazy Genius podcast. I'm Kendra Adachi. This podcast is not about hacking the system to find more time or hacking your energy to get more done. Hustling to be the best or to make the most out of every opportunity. It is exhausting and unsustainable. Sustainable. So here we do things differently on this show. We value contentment, compassion and living. In our season we favor small steps over big systems. Here we are, lazy geniuses, being a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. And I'm so glad you're here. Today is episode 452, 12 Ways to be a Better Problem Solver Part 1. This was not going to be a two parter, but then I realized how much richness there is in becoming a better problem solver. Especially a lazy genius genius problem solver. In many ways, these next two weeks are the ethos of everything that we do here. Problems are everywhere. Shoes never get put away, you're always out of spoons, your brakes are squeaking, but you don't know if it's like bad enough to matter. You miss your friend who lives four states away and you feel like you don't know how to connect anymore. You keep losing your keys, your marriage feels rocky. Now that you're like official empty nesters. You don't understand this whole home air filter thing and where to even change one. And that makes you feel like a baby. And those are just like the problems in your tiny little life that no one really sees. This episode and next week's episode are about those kinds of problems and how to solve them. I do think that we can all become better problem solvers at big consequential things using the exact same ideas, but for the sake of expectations and like emotional energy. These episodes will only involve solving the problems inside your own walls, schedule and life. Some of these steps will be very familiar, others less so. And all together, I hope that they create a compassionate, reliable framework for making your life work a little better based on what matters to you. Today we're going to do five of the 12 and next week we'll do the other seven. After that we'll do a little extra something where I'm going to share the story about our flight to London being canceled the day that we were supposed to leave. Cuckoo pants. As always, we will celebrate the lazy genius of the week. And today it's super fun because we have our first audio Lazy Genus of the week. We are experimenting with occasional voice memos from you guys on the show and this is our first foray into that. This idea as well is such a great one and it's fun to hear someone else's voice too. So we're going to end with a mini pep talk for when you keep chasing a great day. That is today's episode. Now, before we get into that, just a quick reminder that our mailing list is one you probably would enjoy being on. I know that email can be a drag and now is the time of year where a lot of us are unsubscribing from mailing lists to start like a little fresher in a new year. I get that and I applaud it. If less email matters to you, I am in full support. But if you have not ever subscribed to our mailing list, you might be missing out on occasional emails that you actually enjoy getting. Dare I say, even look forward to them. So the first Wednesday of every month I send out the latest lazy letter. It's just once a month and it's where I share more like personally than I do anywhere else. I've shared details about the trips that we took this year to New York and London. That was like a week or two ago. You can snag the details if you might find yourself planning a similar trip. That might be fun for you to read about ours. But I also like share those trips as normal examples of pivots and weird disappointments and navigating all that kind of stuff when you're traveling, right I have shared things that I want more of in my life. I have shared a day in the Life Diary situation where I lay out what usually happens in a certain season of life. A crowd favorite from the newsletter was when I shared the story of our family took our regular like annual fall opening ceremony trip to this farm that has a corn maze. And that's what we do every single fall. And Kaz had to carry a loose goat that one of our children let out out of a cornfield like a baby. Like a giant goat baby. So this is total family lore now. And I shared that story along with a photo the month that happened. That's always a favorite. It's also not just stories either in this news newsletters I share like recipes that I'm trying tool I'm using favorite things I'm watching or enjoying. In fact, I've been having a lot of fun the last couple of weeks of this year. I'm kind of turning 2026 into a time where I'm wanting to listen to like a substantial number of new to Me albums and I've listened to a lot already and I will likely share some of those in the newsletter too. It's just a really fun email to get. So if you would like to join these 60,000 plus people who get it and genuinely love it, you can head to the lazygeniuscollective.com join. Another email you can get is one I mention every single episode. It is the podcast recap email that we send out every other Friday called Latest Lazy Listens. It summarizes the episodes, shares the lazy genius of the week, as well as other segments that we have and a little extra note from me to help encourage you through the weekend. So if you'd like to get that recap, you can head to the lazygeniuscollective.com listens no matter the list that you join or not, we're just really happy you're here. All right, let's take a quick break to hear from our sponsors, which makes this show free for you to listen to. And then we will get into the first five Ways to Be a Better Problem Solver if well being means feeling grounded in your space, start with the easiest Switch the air around you. Pura is a premium smart diffuser that makes home fragrance effortless. Control it from your phone, set it to match your day, and breathe out the chaos. For a limited time, get a free Pura plus home diffuser when you subscribe to your favorite fragrances for 12 months. This is restoration, not reinvention. Grab your free diffuser@pura.com this episode is brought to you by Squarespace, the all in one platform that helps you stand out and succeed online. If you've got something to share, a blog, a small business, or even just an idea you're finally ready to put into the world, Squarespace makes it incredibly simple to build a beautiful, functional website all in one place. You can claim your domain, design your site, grow your audience, and even get paid without needing to piece together a bunch of different tools. If you're offering a service, Squarespace makes it easy to showcase what you do, book appointments, send invoices, and accept payments all from your site. Everything's streamlined and professional so you can focus on your work, not on managing five apps and the design tools are a dream. Their blueprint AI helps you create a custom site in just a few steps. Or you can start with one of their award winning templates and make it your own with simple drag and drop editing. No design degree required, I promise. So if you're ready to bring your thing to Life, head to squarespace.com lazygenius for a free trial and when you're ready to launch, use offer code LAZYGENIUS to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. All right, let's jump into the first five ways to be a better problem solver and next week we'll do the other seven. Number one make the problem as small as possible, y'. All. We try to solve problems that are too big all the actual time. You know this, I know this. And big problems require big solutions, something none of us have the time or energy to come up with, let alone implement. Small problems need small solutions and Small solutions are so much easier to imagine and try low risk, high reward. Now if you find yourself saying, I am so overwhelmed by dinner or I am so overwhelmed by chores, I am so overwhelmed with parenting. I am so overwhelmed with my job, those problems are too big. Way too big. In fact, I think a good kind of fun rule of thumb is if you're overwhelmed by something that has its own category of books on Amazon, like Parenting and Household Chores, the problem is too big. You will immediately become a better problem solver by solving smaller problems. But how does that work? How do you make problems smaller? The next few steps speak to that. You could unknowingly stay stuck inside problems that are too big because of a few simple choices. So these next few steps are going to help you make different choices. So let's move on then to number two. In order to be a better problem solver, you need to remember your season of life. We all have the tendency to generalize our problems and to even see those giant problems through the lens of a season that felt easier. Like when you have a baby who won't sleep, you miss when you did not have kids. When you have teenagers who make dumb decisions and say mean things to you, you miss when you had a baby who wouldn't sleep because at least they were cuddly and wanted you around. The grass is always greener. So become a better problem solver by seeing life through the lens of seasons. You will use this forever because your seasons will change forever. Family, jobs, homes, mental health issues, physical strength, mobility, proximity to people you love, friendships, the world around you, things as small as the proficiency of your dishwasher. All of those things change often and will continue to change always. It's just how life is. I'm in a season of launching two teenage boys onto the road and into the world that requires a lot of my energy right now. I'm also in a season where it's important for me to navigate a perimenopausal body, and she requires a lot of kind tending. But if I ignore that season with both of those primary things in favor of less important things that kind of fit into a different season, I put the entire season at risk because I'm not taking care of myself or my kids in a way that helps me be engaged in places that matter or helps empower them to be engaged in the things that matter to them. So be a person who locks in on the season you're in. Get good at naming it. Practice acknowledging it even if it's not your favorite season Be patient as you figure out where you are in your season. You will become a better problem solver when you stop trying to solve problems that are simply the result of a different season of life. Number three, you will become a better problem solver when you name what matters early and often. Naming what matters, especially about a problem that you are making smaller, it is the smoothest path to a solution that's probably going to work. If you don't know what matters about a solution, you'll have a harder time choosing one. Like, even small problems have multiple solutions. So name what matters early and keep naming it to remember early and often. Okay, let's work this out. You've stated the very big, overwhelming problem of your job. Okay? You're overwhelmed by your job. Well, we know that that is too big, right? So you've gradually made the problem smaller. You realize that the work itself is overwhelming, yes, but it's, it's manageable. What is not as manageable is going from one slightly overwhelming job at your office to another, which is taking care of your family and your home. Okay, let's make that smaller. What is your trip home like? Like when you are going from work to home, what's happening? Are you scrolling on your phone on the train? Are you letting AI read you unread emails during your drive so you know what to respond to later? Are you breathing the same way? Are you thinking the same way as you were at work? Is there anything about the transition from work to home that is contributing to the sense of overwhelm? I'm going to say probably, but unless you know what matters specifically about that drive or ride home from work, you could choose a solution that's not going to actually help you. You might say to yourself, you know, I just need to drive in silence because you think that's like a grown up answer. But silence only makes things worse because it makes your brain spin more with all the things you need to do. And really what you need to do is like laugh at a, you know, a comedy album or listen a good hang with Amy Poehler. Or maybe you think that you should spend that ride talking to a friend because again, that's what adults do, right? They reconnect with their friends. But you're an internal processor who needs to just like think for a bit on your own, in your own head before talking to another person. Especially when you have gone from talking to people at work and you're about to talk to multiple other people waiting to ask you many questions and tell you many things when you get home, name what matters, and do it early in the problem solving process so you can identify a solution that's going to work a little better for you. And then here's why you need to name what matters. Often let's say that you need to escape on your drive home and you need to, like, calm down a little. Okay? You do that successfully by listening to Rachel McAdams read you Anne of Green Gables, something you've been wanting to do ever since you read about it in the book list email where I share books that I've read and I listen to that one. You love how you feel after listening to a few minutes of Ann slash Rachel. But when Ann slash Rachel is over, you don't name what matters again and you just pick up another random audiobook because you're like, well, audiobooks are what I'm gonna do now. But this time it's a James Patterson thriller that does not make you feel the same way that Ann Shirley did. So it's not just that you listen to an audiobook on the drive home. It should probably be a specific kind that calms you, makes you happy, not something that raises your heart rate because, like, oh my goodness, the cops partner is a traitor. You see what I mean? Keep naming what matters so you don't lose sight of it. You will be a better problem solver when you name what matters early and often. Number four, Listen for the invisible problem. We often make our problems too big by not acknowledging what they actually are. Sometimes the real problem is beneath the surface, and it needs a much different solution than the solutions we keep throwing at it. You think the problem, for example, is cleaning the kitchen at the end of the day. It's a pain. It takes forever, and by the time you're done and you hit the couch for like a moment of rest or reading or whatever you want, you're just kind of grumpy and annoyed and now it's time for bed. Well, if you live with other people, maybe the invisible problem is that you resent the fact that it always falls on you. Maybe your kids are big now and they're like, not at home at night because of jobs and friends and licenses, or they've moved out altogether and so they don't help the way that they used to. Maybe they're not even home for dinner very often, which is also sad to you. But since they used to help and now they don't, it immediately falls to you. Now, if your partner, if you have one, does not notice that shift and keeps going to the Gym after dinner or watching sports center or doing their own thing. Instead of recognizing the shift and taking part in the kitchen cleaning the kitchen, you will seethe in the change and you will throw your problem solving energy at the wrong thing, at kitchen cleaning plans and better cleaners and timer hacks or something. All while like growing more and more angry and frustrated and sad instead. Here the invisible problem is grief over a new season and or the fact that you're the default cleaner now, whether maliciously or more likely accidentally done by a partner. Do you see that? How knowing the invisible problem, it changes how you solve it. I also said to listen for the invisible problem. Like listen to yourself, to the things that you hear yourself saying to in your brain, to the messages you're telling yourself, the little conversation you're having with yourself while you're angrily washing dishes, or the things you're saying about other people. Also listen to your people, members of your family, your friends, your parents, Everyone you know is probably saying something without saying something. So if you're in a situation where you can kind of help solve a problem, practice listening for the invisible problem. Sometimes just validating what you're observing to that person is enough to solve the problem totally. Like, people just want to be heard. They just want people to see them and like get their point of view. So practice listening and you're going to become a better problem solver. And finally, for today, number five, notice catastrophic language. This is a big one. I've mentioned it before, and it keeps our problems very big. When we are overwhelmed and stressed and we have not made our problems small yet, we use big language. They never put their shoes away. They always reject what I make for dinner. Everything is the worst. I understand this cadence, I really do. But what this kind of language does this always, never everyone, everything, no one, nothing, forever language. What this does is it makes a bigger problem even bigger and possibly inaccurate. When you use catastrophic language, when you generalize your entire situation with one word, you're not really telling yourself the truth. And if you're not telling yourself the truth, you cannot identify the real problem and you definitely can't solve it. I think catastrophic language, it also discourages us emotionally, even if we don't realize it's happening. Words are powerful and you could be changing the chemistry of how you see your challenges if you're using these broad, general catastrophic words. Now, I do think that this one is actually pretty easy to implement this step. I did not say to stop saying catastrophic words. I didn't say that. I said notice Your catastrophic language, you don't have to stop saying it. I think that's a hard ask out of the gate. The intended goal is to say those words less often, you know, than you might now. But just notice. Notice when you do, and notice what those words are doing for you. Are they hiding an invisible problem? Are they keeping you from seeing the smaller situation? Are they like a. Like a subconscious red flag you're waving to say that like you're not okay? Or maybe a white flag and you're like, I surrender. I need help. Maybe they're just a cry for solidarity for someone to hear you and see that this is hard. When you say, like, oh, everything's the worst, and your friend says, I know, like, that feels good. There's nothing wrong with that. Notice what it does for you. Maybe you just need somebody to say everything's the worst with you, and then it feels less worse. But just notice how those words impact you and maybe impact your ability to move forward and make a change in something that could use one. Tell yourself the truth. Catch yourself when you say one of those words at someone else that you know and love in a sort of antagonistic way, you know, rewind to be like, no, that's not true. I'm sorry I said that. You never do your homework. That's not true. I'm not being fair with my frustration here, so forgive me for that. And then continue on with more accurate, honest, non catastrophic language. It's an incredibly valuable practice and one that will absolutely make you a better problem solver, because without the catastrophic language, you can actually see the problem you need to solve. So to recap, the first thing, and maybe the best thing to begin to be a better problem solver is to make the problem smaller. Those other four things help contribute, that they support that effort, right? You remember your season of life. You name what matters early and often. You listen for invisible problems and you notice catastrophic language when you practice those four things in service for that first one in service of making a problem smaller, I believe you can solve just about anything. And we haven't even gotten into the other seven, so that'll be next week. Next week we're going to get into seven more practical ways to be a better problem solver. This episode is sponsored by Wayfair. There is something about the start of a new year that makes me want to cozy up my space, not overhaul it, just make it feel a little more like home again after the holidays. And Wayfair is perfect for that. They've got everything in one place. From cozy bedding and kitchen essentials to storage solutions and decor that feels like you. Over the years, I found some great pieces on Wayfair. Mirrors, furniture, a few pieces of art, and every time the process has been easy and genuinely enjoyable. 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Okay, We, a family whose travel identity is quote day trip to a college town, decided to go to London the week before Christmas. We are not travelers. We did not have enough suitcases. This would be an adventure on many levels, but we were excited to take it. We also didn't know that we would be in New York over Thanksgiving, since Sam had not yet been chosen for the Macy's Marching Band, a travel pylon for for sure. Our travel day arrived. The plan was to fly from our local airport to LaGuardia and then from JFK to Heathrow. We planned to spend the long layover between airports hanging around Queens and then take the red eye to London. Not the easiest path, but what international trip is? The morning of our flight, I woke up to a text message that said our flight to London was canceled. It had a link for the rebooking information, and that was kind of it. At first I smelled scam because I simply couldn't believe it. What international flights are canceled? The day of the flight, apparently this one, the app, the Internet, and the loss of my stomach confirmed it. Kaz left to wake up the kids walking past our neat line of packed suitcases, and I got on the phone with customer service because their rebooking link led to nothing. That is because there were no flights. The first no nonsense rep said, all flights to London from JFK are full. There is nothing. I am still flabbergasted at the starkness of the reply. I just couldn't believe there was nothing. I called again half an hour later and spoke to another rep. This one was kinder, but just as resolute. There are no available bookings out of jfk. I countered with, what about out of Chicago or anywhere? Surely JFK did not have sole ownership of flights to London. After many stressful minutes on hold, all while my curious children kept asking for status updates, she returned to say she had found six tickets on a Chicago flight leaving that evening. Huzzah. The new plan was to still fly to LaGuardia, but then fly to Chicago. The layover was terrifyingly tight, but what else were we supposed to do? We rushed to pick up my mom, who's going with us, and headed to the airport, hoping that everything would work out. But here's the kicker. While this customer service rep told me she had six tickets booked in our names from Chicago to Heathrow, when I plugged our confirmation numbers into the app, nothing happened. No boarding passes, no confirmation, no error message messages even. Nothing. I blamed it on a lot of other folks trying to rebook a canceled flight. But until I had boarding passes in my hand, I would not rest. We arrived at our Greensboro airport and I headed to the gate agent. His name was David and he wore a red beanie embedded with twinkling Christmas lights. I liked him immediately. He listened to me and was on the case first he went looking for our boarding passes, but only found four. Cool, cool, cool. He printed them out and encouraged us to check in with a British Airways staffer at the next airport. Then he said, I see that you're supposed to fly out of Chicago. We have a flight leaving for Chicago from here in an hour. It would be easier to skip New York altogether. Do you want me to try and switch your tickets? Yes, David, yes, I would. Watching our plane to New York leave before we had tickets booked to Chicago was a bit scary, but we trusted David to get us where we needed to go. He got us on a flight straight to Chicago. We bought him a thank you coffee from the airport Starbucks and then took off. Once we arrived in Chicago, everyone got a table at the airport Applebee's, since my children never turned down a chance to eat at a chain. And I went to find a human who could help us locate these two missing boarding passes. In no world could I eat an overpriced burger without them. I went to multiple help desks and gates, but either no one could help me or no one was there. Shakespeare, the tragic version, was in charge of my timing, and my stress continued to build. Having run out of real humans to talk to, I found an empty, quiet gate and got on the phone once again with customer service. And once again, the rep could not help me find these missing boarding passes. After 20 minutes on the phone with her, she said, well, we could try this. And then, I kid you not, the line dropped. The empty airport corner suddenly became an SOS dead zone, and so did my soul. I decided that crying was needed and deeply appropriate at this point, and I just, like, let it ride there. At Gate K19, I also realized how sweaty I was from per menopause, from stress, and the fun packing hack of wearing all of your biggest items on a plane. Thankfully, I had my suitcase and I exchanged my wool socks and snow boots for vans right then and there. I didn't have a single short sleeved shirt in my bag because we were going to London in December. So, undeterred and sweating like a stuck pig, I went to the gift shop, bought a Chicago T shirt, and changed in the bathroom. Newly cool and suddenly starving, I decided an overpriced burger was in fact more important than immediate boarding passes. I joined the family at Applebee's. We laughed at the chaos, and then we all went back to gate K19 to try again. I tried multiple ways with multiple people. Over the next five hours, I talked to three more reps on the phone, all of whom told me different things. I talked to several different gate agents and help desk people who all said versions of I can't see if you're on the flight. But eventually one person on the phone did say to me, all of your names are on the flight list from Chicago to Heathrow. I cannot give you boarding passes over the phone, but you all have seats. And I still had four of the six passes in my hand. I continued to hold on to hope. 12 hours after receiving the cancellation text, a British Airways flight was finally setting up shop at of all places, Gate K19, where my family had been calling home for half a day. I tried to explain our situation, that we had multiple confirmation numbers, only some of our boarding passes, and still no record of any of us in our flight apps. The woman took my boarding passes, clicked a few keys on her computer, and then ripped my four precious boarding passes in half. With the warmth of a James Bond villain, she said, these aren't real. You don't have any seats. Perhaps it's dramatic to say that when she ripped the paper she ripped my heart, but I think drama is warranted here. I stayed calm and even kind, but I was also hella firm. You can understand how this would be confusing for me. I was told our names were on the list, we have confirmation numbers and we just had boarding passes and now you say we don't. Help me understand what our options are. She said, the flight is overbooked. You should have never been told that you had seats because you don't. The best we can do is put you on standby for the last flight out at 9:35, but it's also overbooked. I wouldn't count on it. After a few more minutes of back and forth, we parted ways, but with my crew in a worse situation than before. Sigh. Let me pause here to say that my kids were incredible this entire day. They were patient, flexible, didn't complain. It was remarkable. They were so worried we wouldn't get to go and were honest about disappointment. But they were light and whole and easy. My gratitude to them was over the moon. So after our precious boarding passes were ripped in half, I returned to my family and I said, hey, we have to wait a little longer. The last flight to London is in three hours and once the gate crew arrives, I'll go ask again. And once this 5:2 woman in a pencil skirt and red tie arrived at the gate an hour later, I did. Zara was warm and lovely. I explained the situation and she said, I definitely want to help you. I need to get things set up for pre boarding now, but come back in 15 minutes and we'll see what we can do. It was the longest 15 minutes of my life. When I returned, she looked at the last flight out as well as all the other flights leaving for London the next day. She said, I'm gonna shoot you straight. Your chances of making it on standby for tonight's flight are slim and they are worse tomorrow. If you don't get on tonight's flight, I think you should call it. She put our names on the standby list, noting that I had a nine year old little girl with me who under no circumstances could sit with a stranger for an overnight international flight. And then we waited. Now this was the longest 15 times 6 minutes of my life. Kaz and I decided that Zara was right. If we didn't make standby on this flight, we should get a hotel room, maybe spend a day in Chicago to make the most of it and then just fly home. Plus there would be all the cancellations of lodging events and hoping we could get our money back. I was trying to think ahead wisely but still hold hope that we'd make it regardless. It was nice to have a locked plan if London was a bust. Pivot over plan. Right as the flight began to fill up, we all felt the air going out of the balloon. There were just too many people making their connections. Not that we were rooting for other people to miss out on a trip, but realism is a bear. Then I hear Paging adachi to gate K19. All six of us went wide eyed and I ran to the desk to see there was Zara holding a thick stack of boarding passes. She said, I was able to get your mother in first class. There's a business seat open and we have four coach seats all together. Where's your family? You need to get in line to board. I have rarely felt so much relief and gratitude at once, much less at an airport. I waved my family over. Zara confirmed our passports, gave us our tickets and we got on the plane. My mom headed to first cos went to business and Annie and I sat together in coach. She needed her mama bad after such a crazy day and the boys were right behind us. Dinner included, slimy brussels sprouts. The Seat TVs didn't work for a couple of hours and we barely slept because of course. But we made it. I was and still am proud of myself for how I handled this day. I'm proud of my kids. I'm proud of our entire family practicing what it means to pivot. Sure, this pivot took 16 hours from text to takeoff, but we did it, y'. All. Remembering what matters, starting small, staying kind, and seeing the good that is here right now works. It makes life even the times with chaotic, canceled flights better, kinder, warmer, more human. Just good. And that would be true even if we hadn't made it on the flight to London. But I'm sure glad we did. And that's the end of the newsletter essay. Such a harrowing tale, is it not? If this was fun for you to hear, if you wish you could see, I don't know, pictures of my family on the plane in London, or you just like hearing this kind of peek into my life, go ahead and join the mailing list. At the bottom of every newsletter is a link to all the old newsletters. So even if you want to go back and see what's come before, you can totally do that. That link is thelazygeniuscollective.com join all right, now it's time for the Lazy Genius of the Week. And today we get to hear the actual person say their name and their idea.